Quartet is a rock-solid drama about musicians living in a retirement home – and one that will give a lot of pleasure to most broad-minded, mature cinemagoers.

The market this film is chasing is clearly the same one as Mr Holland’s Opus (1995), Mrs Henderson Presents (2005) and The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (2012).

Quartet

And if you think of it as a very good companion piece, then you won’t go far wrong.

Maggie Smith again stars here and there’s another reference to a need for a new hip.

But perhaps we can forgive Oscar-winning screenwriter Ronald Harwood (The Pianist) for that since the script is based on his original 1999 play.

The quite stunning Hedsor House in Buckinghamshire was used to film Beecham House, a retirement home for opera singers.

Cissy (Pauline Collins), Wilf (Billy Connolly) and Reg (Tom Courtenay) were in an operatic quartet, but with a concert to be staged for Verdi’s birthday every year, will the appearance of Reg’s ex-wife Jean (Maggie Smith) put a spanner in the works given her fall from grace?

Hoffman directs his cast with commendable composure.

This is never going to be a film where the camera rushes around to leave you dizzy, but one where the actors are simply asked, as with Michael Haneke’s revered Amour), to do some quietly-impressive performing.

While there are no great surprises in store, it’s a real pleasure to be able to watch a cast of this quality playing beyond their years.

Too often Hollywood would rather plasticise an actor’s face than let them give in to the ageing process, but that’s like taking the top off a bottle of fine wine half through its journey to full maturity; what useless vinegar are we then left with?

Connolly is a shade over the top with his effervescent sexual thoughts, but the others offer a delicate mixture of forgetfulness, creeping senility and general dodderiness.

Not that this is a depressing film. Far from it.

With the cast including the peerless Michael Gambon, Quartet is a celebration of age in its own right and our golden years to boot.

It shows that even in ‘November’ there are days when the weather can still be wonderful.

And the end-credits picture montage of what some of the cast used to do at their peak, cleverly illustrates how spring and summer pass quickly enough.